


Heartless

by deliriouslyshipping



Series: T'Cherik Drabbles [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliriouslyshipping/pseuds/deliriouslyshipping
Summary: Erik does not have a heart.





	Heartless

Erik doesn’t have a heart-he refuses to. There was no time for a heart in this kind of life; he has spent his whole life planning on taking over the people who took away the only person he has ever loved. No heart was present, but hatred and revenge took its place instead. After years of planning, training, killing, he had Wakanda in the palm of his hands. 

Then the fucker had to live and pull some move that Erik was not expecting whatsoever. T’Challa, the dumbass, made it worse by not allowing him to die, nursing him back to health while he rebuilt Wakanda. T’Challa let Erik wrap his hands around his throat, lash out, and then sat there and talked to him. Like who does that? Who can lay there with the same person who could’ve ruined everything their ancestors had worked for and treat him like he is human? Who-

No, Erik doesn’t have heart, but he began to expect the daily visits from the King. It wasn't like he enjoyed it or anything. Sometimes he would say something that has the King smiling. Other times T'Challa was saying something that made him believe he must be on some drugs that are messing with his muscles because now his heart beats a little faster and the muscles in his cheeks twitch upward. 

Then Nakia came along. The beautiful warrior came in and stole his daily conversations with T’Challa-not like Erik cares. No, it’s not like he feels as empty as he did when there was a blade in his chest or for the last entirety of his life (he must be on drugs. He swears they caused him to have unwanted tugs of emotion that he refuses to believe is there).  
Erik wants to kill her. He wants to penetrate her with the knife he has under his pillow. Erik isn't quite sure why, but he wants her to cease to exist. He can't quite figure it out, but he knows it has to deal with T'Challa. Something real deep inside of him wants TChalla around-if he is going to be stuck here, he would enjoy some company. Yet-he doesn’t want just anyone’s company-he just wants to wipe her existence away because there is something in him that would fight over the naive King. How funny is it that the man he wants nothing more than to kill is also the person he would kill for..Erik tries not to think of that too much. 

T’Challa, after two weeks, once came in with a band on his finger and Erik lashed out. There was no real rhyme or reason to it,Tears spilled from his eyes and he was shaking in the corner with the shining reflection of a ring, nagging into his thoughts and shaking up something his chest-like there is a heart. T’Challa, instead of leaving, wrapped his arms around Erik and let him cry out everything. Erik didn't ever tell him why he was crying, but T'Challa never asked either.  
It screws with Erik. He cannot handle this, but it only makes him cry more. T’Challa gets up after he finishes crying and extends a hand. Erik takes it and the King takes him out of his holding cell into a room down the hall from him. Erik guesses Nakia and T’Challa now share a room, so he wraps something around his mouth every night to quiet the noises of his sleeps. Sometimes in his dreams he dies and other times there is soft brown eyes looking at him with four letters that starts with L and hurts him. Eventually, T’Challa finds out, and spend a night with him, arm wrapped around his lower abdomen like he belongs there. 

Erik doesn’t have a heart and he is not soft in any way, but this was the first night since he found his daddy in the floor that he could sleep.  
T’Challa enters his daily routine again. He stops by and checks up on him. Sometimes they spar for fun and at night, when Nakia is away, T’Challa holds him and allows sleep to take over them both. In the end, Nakia and T’Challa fight about it a lot. Erik can hear through the silent halls-the argument over the two. 

“You care too much for him.”

“He is my cousin, my blood, Nakia. He has never had anyone in his life before.”

“He tried to kill you, kill Shuri, and now you want to go into his room while I work for Wakanda? What is wrong with you?” 

“What is wrong with you? His home is Wakanda too. If N’Jadaka needs someone, I will be there. That is final.”

“… do you love him?” 

“I love you, you know that.” T’Challa says that so low, so earnestly, that he knows that it is true. 

Nakia’s and T’Challa’s wedding date is announced the next day. Erik doesn’t feel like eating for a while, doesn’t feel like doing anything but stare at the sky at his window. No one comes after him or forces him out of the room, and he is more grateful for that. 

The day before the wedding, T’Challa comes into his room. Erik is honestly salty that the man even remembers he exists. A snarky comment lays on his tongue, but he holds it down just because this is T'Challa. Just because he is hours away from some unexpected pain that he knows he definitely is going to ignore and pretend he does not feel. He smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. 

“Congrats, cuz,” but it feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. His chest and whatever is in there feels wrong. The lie that slips from his tongue like the blood from his wounds. His chest rattles and it is only then that he realizes that tears have escaped his facade all over again. He wipes them away briefly, but the damage is done. The King looks at him, but it feels wrong too. 

But T’Challa kisses him and suddenly everything is right. Everything is right again when T’Challa pushes him softly against the bed and consumes his thoughts for the night, kissing his lips and pressing himself against the other man. It feels right when hands are wrapped around him again, luring him into a easy sleep. The morning comes and Erik wakes up alone. A couple of hours later, T’Challa is wed to Nakia. Celebration can be heard from anywhere in Wakanda, but Erik sits on the ledge of Panther rock, thinking about the moment he almost died-should’ve died. He thinks about the way that T'Challa looks at him in some certainty that he will save him. He thinks about the care that the King took to him when no one else would, even when he laid in the same bed. It fucks Erik up. 

Twirling a blade in his hand, Erik finally admits to himself that he has a heart; it was started the moment this exact blade was driven into his chest. A tear falls from his right eye as he watches the Wakandan sunset alone.  
Erik has a heart and it is truly broken.


End file.
